Insurer claims misaligned ductwork caused oven fire, $500K in damage at NOLA in Market Square

Two companies negligently installed a brick oven in a restaurant in Market Square, causing a fire that resulted in more than $500,000 worth of damage to two buildings, a Boston-based insurance company claims in a federal lawsuit filed Monday.

Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Co. is seeking to recover the $509,429.31 it paid the buildings' owner on a damage claim from the fire Feb. 24.

The insurer claims that PBI Construction Co. LLC and Quality Mechanical Services Inc. are responsible for the fire in NOLA restaurant that damaged Perl, an adjacent restaurant.

PBI Construction of Richland declined comment.

Nick Birkos, vice president of Quality Mechanical Services in Penn Hills, said the company reviewed a preliminary copy of the lawsuit and prepared a response denying it was responsible for the fire. There's no proof that we had anything to do with it, he said.

Though the brick oven was installed in the same spot as a previous oven, its hood wasn't aligned with the exhaust flue in the ceiling, so the companies used various elbows and angles to connect the new oven exhaust ductwork to the existing ductwork and flue, the lawsuit says.

The companies failed to take into account that the ductwork ran near combustible material in the ceiling, the lawsuit says.

Birkos said his company didn't install ductwork.

It only welded a connection from the new oven's hood to the duct system, he said.

Pittsburgh inspectors cited the restaurant for failing to obtain a permit which would have included plans signed by a registered designer to install the oven. The restaurant corrected the violations, a city spokesman said.

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Insurer claims misaligned ductwork caused oven fire, $500K in damage at NOLA in Market Square